One remarkable
thing about Apple is that it has generally made decisions in favor of
preserving its customers privacy rather than collecting data about
their preferences or activities — or making it easy for third
parties to do so without Apple users’ explicit permission.
However, now the company has a patent on technology that could take
an activerole in preserving users’ privacy. Titled
“Techniques
to pollute electronic profiling,” the patent essentially
describes methods that can be used to disseminate
false information about individuals, making it more
difficult for marketers, analytics companies, and even governments to
collate accurate profiles of Internet users’ activities,
preferences, and attitudes.

"Dane Jasper's tiny Internet
service provider Sonic.net briefly took the national spotlight last
October, when it contested a Department of Justice order that it
secretly hand over the data of privacy activist and WikiLeaks
associate Jacob Appelbaum. But Sonic.net has actually been quietly
implementing a much more fundamental privacy
measure: For the past eighteen months it's only kept logs of user
data for two weeks before deletion, compared with
18 to 36 months at Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and other
ISPs. In a lengthy Q&A, he explains how
he came to the decision to limit logging after a series of
shakedowns by copyright lawyers attempting to embarrass users who had
downloaded porn films, and he argues that it's time all ISPs adopt
the two-week rule."

Are we looking at a major legal
screw-up or cleverly orchestrated “defense theater?”

In January, MegaUpload founder Kim
DotCom was little more than antipiracy road kill.
[Steamrollered by the MPAA? Bob]

Six months later, DotCom is making a
comeback.

… A month after his arrested,
DotCom was still locked up in jail. His assets had all been seized.
His family had been booted out of his home. Since then, however,
DotCom and some of the other MegaUpload defendants have won a string
of favorable court decisions in New Zealand that have led to their
release on bail, the return of some of their assets and a court order
that requires the FBI to show the evidence it has against the
company.

On Friday, when MegaUpload's lawyers
are due to appear in a Virginia federal court to argue that the
charges should be tossed out, all the momentum will be with them.

… His biggest public-relations coup
was posting a photo of himself with Steve Wozniak, the bearded and
beloved co-founder of Apple. For the skeptics who don't believe a
photo necessarily signifies an endorsement, Wozniak, in an exclusive
e-mail interview with CNET, made clear what he thinks of DotCom.

"When crimes occur through the
mail, you don't shut the post office down," Wozniak wrote on
Sunday. "When governments dream up charges of 'racketeering'
for a typical IT guy who is just operating a file-sharing service, or
accuse him of mail fraud because he said he had removed files [to
alleged infringing content] when he'd just removed the links to them,
this is evidence of how poorly thought out the attempt to extradite
him is. Prosecutors are attempting to take advantage of loopholes."

… DotCom's extradition hearing in
New Zealand is scheduled for August 6. But come Friday, Ira Rothken,
MegaUpload's lead attorney, is expected to argue that the U.S.
government hasn't properly served the defendants with a summons. The
company's lawyers also say the U.S. Department of Justice has no
jurisdiction over the Hong Kong-based company.

Over in New Zealand MegaUpload's legal
team has recently made an issue of the removal of some of Kim
DotCom's personal data from New Zealand. The court is trying to
determine whether the United States and New Zealand had the
authorization to transfer the data.

In April, District Judge Liam O'Grady
wondered aloud in court whether the case against DotCom would ever go
to trial. The way things are going, the judge's statement looks
prophetic.

Prepping for a big presentation but
can't seem to remember any of the content? Blame your sweet tooth.

A diet high in sugar may hamper your
memory and ability to learn, says a study published in the Journal of
Physiology.

Researchers had two groups of rats
drink water mixed with fructose, a type of sugar. One of the groups
also received omega-3 fatty acids as a part of their diet. After 6
weeks, the rats who drank only sugar water completed a maze slower
than the omega-3-fed mice. (We know you're not a mouse -- but you
can still take steps to navigate the maze of life. Check out these
27
Ways to Power Up Your Brain.)

After five years at Facebook, where she
was one of three engineers who launched the company’s advertising
platform, Yun-Fang Juan could write her own ticket. That might have
meant joining an early-stage startup in the mold of, say, Instagram
(sold to Facebook for $1 billion), or starting her own venture (ex
Facebook engineer Dave Morin has one valued
at $250 million), or angling for one of Google’s legendary
compensation packages.

Instead, after taking some time off for
soul searching, the long-ago winner of a Yahoo “superstar” award
decided to go work for a small online education non-profit known as
Khan Academy, where she’d have no shot at any sort of jackpot.

… Juan is hardly alone. Khan
Academy, an educational non-profit, is becoming one of the sexiest
workplaces for programmers in Silicon Valley, where stock options,
IPOs and big-money acquisitions have long been considered key to
luring talent. It’s attracted star coders from companies like
Google and Microsoft and, as it grows, has its pick of some of the
tech sector’s top engineers.

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About Me

I live in Centennial Colorado. (I'm not actually 100 years old., but I hope to be some day.) I'm an independant computer consultant, specializing in solving problems that traditional IT personnel tend to have difficulty with... That includes everything from inventorying hardware & software, to converting systems & data, to training end-users. I particularly enjoy taking on projects that IT has attempted several times before with no success. I also teach at two local Universities: everything from Introduction to Microcomputers through Business Continuity and Security Management. My background includes IT Audit, Computer Security, and a variety of unique IT projects.